Quotes / Vaporwave

"Global capitalism is nearly there. At the end of the world there will only be liquid advertisement and gaseous desire. Sublimated from our bodies, our untethered senses will endlessly ride escalators through pristine artificial environments, more and less than human, drugged-up and drugged down, catalysed, consuming and consumed by a relentlessly rich economy of sensory information, valued by the pixel. The Virtual Plaza welcomes you, and you will welcome it too."

—Adam Harper in his initial Dummymag article on Vaporwave

"Many of the people I've introduced it to personally have expressed the strongest disbelief that it could be a positive and sincere sound, but the incredible thing about vaporwave is it's not emotionally or aesthetically detached, not superficially ironic. Who was I to imply that the work of these bold new producers wasn't sincere? A cynical British dude from a different generation who grew up venerating that particular, acerbic brand of avant-gardism of Aphex Twin and Radiohead and the disconnected fantasies of post-rock and freak folk, that's who."

—Adam Harper, expressing bit of regret towards said article

"What is vaporwave? According to commenters in various music forums, it’s 'chillwave for Marxists,' 'post-elevator music,' 'corporate smooth jazz Windows 95 pop,' and (my personal favorite) 'better than that witch house shit.' "

—Michelle Lhooq, "Is Vaporwave the Next Seapunk?"

"it seems now me and other ppl who were doing things before the tag got invented are living with it, more or less. once this kind of thing explodes, it becomes futile to try and kill it off. i'd rather just keep doing what i'm doing instead of making everything i do a reaction to this label."

—Robin Burnett talking about the term "vaporwave"

"These so-called vaporwave artists, a crop of sample-based producers that includes New Dreams Ltd., INTERNET CLUB, Computer Dreams, MJ Linckoln, Lasership Stereo, VΞRACOM, and others, are appropriating wholesale from the 20th-century garbage dump, oftentimes corporate stock music and by-the-numbers mood music, non-satirical pastiche originally designed for utility (as requisite intro/transition music, as mere signifiers of commodified emotion, etc.). Drawing from a tradition of musical appropriation that extends back decades but rooting itself in the aesthetics and techniques of both DJ Screw’s chopped-and-screwed mixtapes and Daniel Lopatin’s eccojams (as Chuck Person), these artists are foregrounding what was initially intended to play in the background, appropriating musics that are acts of appropriations themselves, attuning our ears to sounds we rarely take seriously in the first place."

—A Tiny Mixtapes review of 情報デスクVIRTUAL's' Contemporary Sapporo album

"but in strict regard to vaporwave, i think that kind of coverage encourages people to over-intellectualize it, which in turn makes the people behind it appear unjustifiably pretentious (and in turn, completely moronic) given the type of music we specialize in. how much context can you really give to a doctored loop of a jazz instrumental? truly guys, we are sample curators at best. we put into practice the art of commodifying art...[taking] 'music' and returning it to its most primordial state, 'sound'."

—Vektroid, referring to Adam Harper's initial article on the genre

i might speak only for myself, but new dreams ltd was a slightly derisive practical joke aimed at the witch house/seapunk/net music scene. it is bred from the hypothesis that the scene has such a backwards mentality of music that they will listen to anything, no matter how tragically unfashionable the music sounds, if it's packaged fashionably. new dreams ltd was essentially built to exploit how heavily the perception of sound is affected by imagery

—Vektroid, on the New Dreams Ltd. project, which comprises all of her vaporwave albums

"of course im into it. i dont see any reason for antagonism. im curious about the formal ideas behind what other people are doing all the time. i'd like to learn more in that sense about that crew of artists at some point."

—Oneohtrix Point Never in a Reddit AMA, after being asked if he liked vaporwave

"I think the "statements" this music makes (can any music not make a statement?) are more sonic than socio-political.

If I was looking to deconstruct/refute the tenets of Capitalism, I would not come to the table with a Macintosh Plus album. Let's get real. "Oh my god, it wasn't until I heard that Roland D-50 at 60% speed that I realized that money is an illusion and all of my material dross is unfulfilling..." No.

I think there was a lot of great music made in the 80's in the commercial/pop vein because bands were using new electronic instruments that were so tacky they were beautiful. Well maybe beautiful's a stretch. Either way - it's almost like it's so ironic sounding it's not ironic (i.e. it's legitimately pleasing). And maybe that's why people need to add some other layer to it (because they fear enjoying such an inherently tacky thing)."

— A YouTube comment hypothesizing where the "ironic" tag came from

"When Floral Shoppe came out in 2011, it and vaporwave as a genre got pegged, perhaps a bit too zealously, as an ironic indictment of post-capitalism, which in turn led to a gross misread of the movement’s aesthetic as purely silly. Attaching the dreaded “ironic” tag on what is often not too far off from elevator music pretty much nipped vaporwave in the bud; a negative Anthony Fantano review of Floral Shoppe and an annoying 4chan bandwagon you’ll see mimicked on the Sputnik soundoffs page stunted the genre’s growth, relegating it to “hipster-trash” status alongside seapunk and witch house. This is unfortunate, especially in the case of Floral Shoppe. While other Vektroid releases pushed the line of innovative reimagining and straight muzak, Floral Shoppe is a stunning record that transcends any contextual bullshit it was saddled with. It is its own universe, a sensuous slice of virtual reality that endures because it most of all is more interested in creating something beautiful than sneering at something inane."

— A Sputnik Music review of MACINTOSH PLUS' Floral Shoppe

"Vaporwave really rekindled my love for music, to the point where I enjoy it as much as I did when I was a teenager. Before it, I spent a lot of 2013 listening to spacey drum & bass mixes while watching Hong Kong and Tokyo night driving videos on YouTube and drinking beer, just because the combination of it all created such a weird feeling I have never experienced before. Then I found vaporwave, and it was like it was already doing all that for me, without having to sync the music up to the videos or drink the alcohol."

—HKE in a Red Bull Music Academy interview

"I tend to categorize this category of music as “vaporwave” (similarly to “vaporware” type of software) – projects trying to the replicate retro feel of the older decades (analog synths etc.) with shy beat structures and New Age-y and old computer imagery."

— Jakub Adamek in a blog post about Girlhood's Surfs Pure Hearts album. It's said that this is the first use of the term "vaporwave".

"this is the future. making clean versions of distorted versions of old songs"

— A youtube comment on a non-distorted recreation of Saint Pepsi and Luxury Elite's "Enjoy Yourself".